Know Your Roots

The Root Family is renown for its loving inclusive in-gatherings. Being married to Steve Root makes me a card-carrying member of the Root Family but that’s one of the especially unique things about the Roots- no cards are required to become and stay attached.

This was my sequence: A good friend arranged Steve’s and my meeting, which occurred at the Sheetz in New Alexandria. Then through the courting process, these Root events brought me into the fold: a brother’s birthday, a trip to Idaho to visit Ben, a trip to New York to visit our daughters, an uncle’s death and burial, a dinner for a nephew and his family visiting from Atlanta, a trip to Paris to bury another uncle’s ashes, a family reunion, a cousin’s daughter’s Bat Mitzvah, a sister’s birthday, another trip to NY, family reunion and Idaho. You get the idea.

In 2006, at the family reunion, I was played by the Root sense of humor. Dana did a little shtick about how each person was connected to the others. She asked me to be the sidekick by continually interrupting her to ask how I could be part of the Root connection. This encouraged Steve to declare his love of me- right then with all of the Roots as his witness. At the end of that reunion, I asked Steve’s sister when the next reunion would occur. She looked at me and said, “Louise, you are the next event.” And so it was that in 2007, the Roots came to Pittsburgh for our wedding.

Last weekend, the Roots were here to remember the last surviving Patriarch, Ben. That’s the thing about the Roots; you only have to ask and they will rally to support you through thick and thin. Perfect name for an amazing clan.